A Perfectly Good Start To The Summer Takes A Nose Dive
by MaryCamille
Summary: Annabeth has a perfectly normal summer planned with Percy at Camp Half-Blood. The first day of summer is going smoothly, and Percy is set to arrive at camp any minute, when suddenly... Well, things aren't so smooth anymore. - Oneshot set after The Heroes of Olympus series


I spent hours on this little idea I had, so hopefully you all enjoy it. And I'd like to thank you all for the wonderful reviews you left for "Something Permanent," my first piece of Percy Jackson fanfiction. Hopefully, this piece will leave you all as pleased as the last. Enjoy!

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The Saturday afternoon at Camp Half-Blood was surprisingly uneventful. Lunch had just been finished, and campers were going back to their activities. Annabeth, however, was sitting on the top of Half-Blood Hill, her eyes trained on the Greek architecture book in her lap.

The nineteen-year-old's body was athletic and tanned, and her golden hair shimmered in the afternoon sun. Curls hung in a sheet on either side of her face and cast a shadow on the pages of the book. She squinted against the harsh light of the sun that reflected off of the white paper, trying to make out the small black printed words as they threatened to move around the page.

The grass under her was soft and green, lush in the summer air. The smell of wildflowers drifted in the air, making her surroundings peaceful and pleasant. Annabeth could hear campers calling out instructions and laughing on the other side of the hill, taking advantage of the time they had to brush up on their skills before the night's capture the flag game.

Unable to focus on the words on the page, Annabeth looked up, towards the road, and scanned it for cars. Nothing. No sign of her boyfriend yet.

Percy Jackson was nothing short of exactly what Annabeth had never known she'd wanted. When she'd met him, he'd been scrawny and clueless and annoying. Now, he was lean, intelligent, and endearing. Or maybe he hadn't really changed much at all over the years and her opinions of him had been what had changed.

When she was younger, Annabeth had crushed hard on her close friend Luke Castellan. He'd been brave and handsome and just mischievous enough to spark a sense of adventure in her. But right around the time Percy had come into her life, she'd realized that Luke wasn't to be trusted. He wasn't the same Luke she'd known him to be. He was dangerous and headed down a scary path - one that Annabeth wasn't willing to follow him down.

And then she'd fallen for Percy. He'd taken some getting used to, but once she admitted that she'd started to think about him as more than a friend, it had been a slippery slope. She'd fallen _hard_. Percy was brave, facing the truths about his life with a courage that only a demigod could find, and he'd always tried to do what was truly right. He'd been there for her since the beginning, even when their relationship had gotten off to a rickety start.

Annabeth sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear. Percy was supposed to be here by now, but something must have held him up. They'd Iris-messaged earlier in the day, after breakfast, and he'd promised to be there as soon as he could, which he was hoping would be around lunchtime. In return, she'd promised to be waiting for him at the top of Half-Blood Hill.

They had big plans for the summer. It was going to be perfect, by demigod standards. Camp activities, bonfires, climbing the rock wall, and riding pegasi. They'd swim and Annabeth would bother Percy with architectural and historical facts he didn't really care to know, but he'd pretend to be interested because he knew that Annabeth was. They'd go on dates, too. Alone, where it was quiet and they could talk about their dreams and their futures without being eavesdropped on.

And there would be no wars. They wouldn't go to battle over the gods. The closest they would come to battling on sides for the gods or Olympus would be capture the flag, where the children of the different gods would choose sides and battle in the woods come nightfall with the objective of stealing the other team's flag and seeing it safely delivered past the boundary line of their territory.

That was the most exciting thing for Annabeth. If things went the way she wanted them to, she'd have as normal a summer as a demigod can have with her demigod boyfriend at a camp for children whose parents lived on Mount Olympus. Percy wouldn't disappear this summer, and they wouldn't have to go on a life-threatening quest to save the camp.

"Where are you, Seaweed Brain? We've already lost twenty-seven minutes of our summer," Annabeth muttered, closing the book in her lap. She couldn't pretend to be as interested in the book as she had been before now that her mind had wandered to Percy. Now she'd crossed over into impatient, and was verging on anxious.

_I'm sitting right here until he shows,_ she thought stubbornly.

"Annabeth!"

Or not.

She closed her eyes, praying that she'd imagined the voice and that she wasn't needed anywhere. Couldn't they see she was busy?

"Hey, Annabeth!"

Apparently not.

She turned, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulder as she looked down the valley, spotting Leo. "What is it?" she asked in an annoyed tone. "What do you want?"

Leo seemed frantic, his hands fluttering around like he wasn't really sure quite what to do with them as he spoke. "Uh, well we have this issue in the stables, and we could kinda use your help. But it's no big deal, you look busy." He paused only for a split second. "Actually, it is kind of a big deal, and we could really use your help, and it'd be great if you could just… Yeah. Okay. Please?"

Annabeth glanced back toward the road - there was no sign of a car coming towards the camp, and she sighed heavily. She set her book down on the top of the hill - sure that she'd be back before Percy arrived - and stood, brushing off the seat of her jean shorts. Slowly, she began to make her way down the hill, towards Leo.

"Awesome, thank you," he smiled, giving a thumbs up. "Um, except could you maybe, like, run? 'Cause…"

Without any further explanation, Leo sprinted off towards the stables, leaving Annabeth behind him with a quizzical look on her face.

Curious as to what was going on, Annabeth chased after him, reaching up to tie her hair back so that it wouldn't get into her face.

By the time she rounded the corner of the stables, Leo had disappeared inside, and Annabeth grabbed the side of the large wooden door, swinging around to see what all the ruckus was.

Pegasi and horses alike were rearing and rushing around inside, knocking over things and making other campers jump as they ducked out of the way to avoid injury. Bags of feed and bales of hay had been kicked over and were making a mess that made Annabeth pity whoever would be stuck cleaning it up - and a part of her wondered if she'd be the one pegged with that duty.

"Gods of Olympus!" she exclaimed, pushing a stray strand of blonde hair out of her face. "Leo, what _happened_?"

"I-I don't know!" Leo cried, followed by an entertaining cry of terror that would have made Annabeth laugh under normal circumstances as a horse reared near him.

"We have to calm them down!" Annabeth ordered. "Get them outside, figure out what's upsetting them!"

The plan was simple enough, but when you have a group of Aphrodite kids who are worried about their hair and makeup and horses that are near impossible to calm down, it's hard to get anyone to cooperate - horses _or_ demigods. And then there was Leo, darting in and out, as if he were gaining courage and then losing it as quickly as it came. He kept ducking behind things to catch his breath before rushing out again.

Another familiar face appeared in the flurry of demigods and chaos, and she tried to calm one of the agitated pegasi.

"Piper!" Annabeth called. "Do you have any idea what happened?"

The dark-skinned girl frowned, her features still perfect as they always were, even when she was unhappy. "No," she replied loudly enough that Annabeth would be able to hear her. She had been trying to use her charmspeak to calm the horses before she'd turned her attention to Annabeth. "Troy was in here, though, right before they went wild."

Troy Edmonson was a son of Hermes. He was about fourteen and had sandy-colored hair like most of the other Hermes kids. He always had a crazy look in his eye, and he was always looking for what he called "fun." Last time, "fun" had been stealing the makeup from the Aphrodite's kids' cabins and watching as the finger-pointing and madness ensued after the campers had realized what they were missing - which only took about five minutes, tops. Safe to say, the kid was a troublemaker.

Annabeth's expression hardened. "Find him," she growled, already thinking of a few choice words she could whip out when the camper was found.

Piper nodded and dashed out of the stables.

Because she'd been distracted talking, Annabeth hadn't noticed that the pegasus in front of her had started to raise up on its hind legs, its wings spreading. The sight would've been magnificent, sure, if she wasn't below the winged creature.

She didn't have time to respond, and as soon as she let out a cry, the wind was knocked out of her.

Thankfully, though, it hadn't been the agitated pegasus that had knocked her over.

"Oh my gods, Annabeth, are you okay?" Leo insisted, still lying on top of her.

She grunted, feeling a warm cut across her cheek as it started to bleed. "Thanks," she mumbled, crushed under the weight of the other demigod who seemed to have forgotten that he was lying on top of her. When she looked up, however, her body went rigid. "Move! Leo, move!" she cried, desperate as the pegasus reared again. If they didn't move in the next few seconds, they'd be crushed under the hooves of the horse.

Leo scrambled, but he was clumsy and hadn't been given enough warning, apparently, because he was having trouble getting up.

Annabeth braced herself for impact, thinking,_ There goes my nice, normal summer._

Just when the horse's hooves should have landed on them, Annabeth heard something else. Another camper jumping in the way of the horse and her body and calling out a command. She recognized the voice immediately, and the atmosphere became calmer in almost a split second.

"Whoa, now," Percy soothed the horse, holding his hands out to calm the creature.

Leo finally managed to push off of Annabeth, and landed on his butt in the dirt next to her. She sat up hastily, watching as her boyfriend calmed the horses that had seemed inconsolable only seconds before.

The stables' occupants became quieter, more manageable, and campers were able to grab their reigns and pet their muzzles, speaking soothing words. Annabeth pushed up off of the ground, feeling a sharp pain shoot up her wrist as she did so.

She watched as Percy smiled at the horse, no doubt having a silent conversation. The pegasus's eyes were trained on him directly with eyes too intelligent to belong to any normal beast. Percy's father, Poseidon, had created horses out of sea foam, and because of that, Percy was able to understand and talk to them. He wasn't the _best_ rider, but he was good, and his way with horses was helpful. Especially now.

"What spooked them?" Annabeth asked, pushing her hair back again, as it had escaped the tie it had been held back in and was only partially held back with.

Percy was quiet for a moment, and then he glanced over his shoulder at Annabeth. "Snakes? Something about snakes in the stalls."

She was caught off-guard by the brilliant green of her boyfriend's eyes, and it took her a moment to recover and nod in response.

"Annabeth?" a camper called from the back corner. Annabeth turned her attention to the girl, who was holding up multiple plastic snakes. "Percy's right." The rubber snakes wobbled and squirmed, almost real-looking in the girl's hands.

"Where—is—he?" Annabeth demanded, her jaw tightening and eyes hardening into steel.

She stormed out of the stables, muttering curses in Greek.

It wasn't long before she returned, but she had a squirming camper locked in a death grip under her arm.

"Come on, it was funny!" the boy protested, trying to wriggle his way out of Annabeth's hold. "It was all in good fun! Look, no one got hurt!"

Roughly, Annabeth released him and grabbed him by the collar, showing him the mess of the stables that his plot had created. "I almost got trampled to death!"

"But you didn't!"

In the time she'd been gone, the Aphrodite kids, Leo, and Percy had managed to get the horses relaxed and back into their stalls.

"You're gonna clean these stables, Troy, I don't care how long it takes you, and you're gonna get the horses whatever they want, and you're gonna help out the campers who took care of the situation. Hand and foot waiter,_ do I make myself clear_?" Annabeth ordered, whirling him around to look her in the eyes.

"I'll miss capture the flag!" the fourteen-year-old protested.

Another set of hands grabbed the boy's orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and pulled him from Annabeth's grasp. "Do it, Troy," Percy snarled. "And next time you cause a scene like this, you won't get off so easy."

"I'd listen to them!" Leo called from somewhere to Annabeth's right.

He shoved the Hermes camper backwards, but Troy managed to get his footing and didn't fall down. He scrambled to work, hastily grabbing a broom to sweep up the feed mess on the floor.

Annabeth's expression softened completely when her boyfriend turned and smiled at her. "Hey."

"Nice beginning to our normal summer, huh?" Annabeth laughed, reaching up to touch the cut on her cheek as it stung.

Percy frowned and took a look at the cut, his fingers cool on her flushed skin.

While he inspected the injury, she watched him. His green eyes changed colors as she watched, glimmering the different shades of the sea. Almost cyan sometimes, and dark green others. His olive skin seemed to glow, and dark, messy hair was pushed back out of his eyes. He smelled like he always did - like he'd just gone swimming in the most amazing ocean you could imagine. She could imagine the salty taste of his lips.

"We should get that taken care of," he murmured.

Annabeth nodded.

Percy smiled. "I have something for you, Wise Girl." She watched as he walked back toward stable doors and grabbed something off of his duffel bag - a book. He made his way back over and placed it in her hands. It was the same book she'd been reading as she waited for him on the top hill. The one she'd left sitting in the grass.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and set it down on the dirt floor of the stables.

"Your head is full of kelp," she rolled her eyes, wrapping her arms around his neck. Percy kissed her then, and she closed her eyes. His lips were warm and as salty as she remembered them to be. Annabeth hadn't even realized how long she'd been kissing him until she ran out of air.

"Here's to our normal summer," Percy joked.

Annabeth smiled and pushed her fingers through his dark hair. "Welcome home, Seaweed Brain.


End file.
